Manna From Heaven As Daily Devotions

SATURDAY, 11 MARCH 2023

TEXT: Jeremiah 5:1-11

1. Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.

2. Though they say, As the LORD lives, yet they swear falsely.

3. O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth? You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have to repent.

4. Then I said, These are only the poor; they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.

5. I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. But they all alike had broken the yoke; they had burst the bonds.

6. Therefore a lion from the forest shall strike them down; a wolf from the desert shall devastate them. A leopard is watching their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.

7. How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no goods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores.

8. They were well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife.

9. Shall I not punish them for these things? Declares the LORD; and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?

10. Go up through her vine rows and destroy, but make not a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the LORD’s.

11. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly treacherous to me, declares the LORD.

(English Standard Version Holy Bible)

TOPIC: GONE BEYOND INSTRUCTIONS

God wanted Jeremiah to see the extent to which Israel had gone into sin. So He instructed him: “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city. Although they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’ still they are swearing falsely” (verses 1-2).

Israel was in such a mess that its conscience was seared as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2). They had dwelled too long in falsehood and lived in hypocrisy that ungodliness and the assurances of God’s judgement no longer bothered them.

It is sad that Israel although “You struck them, but they felt no pain; you crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harden than stone and refused to repent” (verse 3).

Is this not what obtains with many of us who call ourselves Christians today? We have become dull of hearing or receiving instructions and corrections.

QUESTION: When last did you respond to God’s words of rebuke and correction or call for repentance?

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, forgive me for my careless responses to Your instructions, rebuke and corrections or calls to repent. Amen.